Extended Unemployment Insurance and Job Search: Evidence from Time Use Data

In this paper, I investigate the effect of extended unemployment insurance (UI) coverage in the United States in recent years on job search. The U.S. government extended UI benefits in several phases in 2008-2009, increasing the duration of the benefits to a maximum of 99 weeks, up from the regular 26 weeks. Using the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) data, I find that women are more sensitive to the extended UI benefits than men. Difference-in-differences estimation shows that the average effect of the UI extensions for women is over a 10 percentage points decline in the probability of job search. However, I do not find any statistically significant effect on men.